OpenAI signs multi-year deal with Getty Images

Getty Images has entered a multi-year partnership with OpenAI to supply its licensed visual libraries for use in the AI company's search function and ChatGPT.

Getty Images supplies licensed visuals to OpenAI products. The pact will let those images surface inside OpenAI search results and ChatGPT answers. In a statement, Getty CEO Craig Peters said "High-quality, licensed visual content makes AI-powered search and discovery more useful and more trustworthy."

Peters added that the arrangement shows both organizations understand this principle and will produce enhanced visual results for people using ChatGPT.

Getty previously opposed AI companies on copyright grounds. The stock photo giant barred every AI-created piece from its collection in September 2022. Months afterward it filed suit against Stability AI claiming copyright violations, although a court turned that claim aside late last year.

Twelve months after imposing the ban, Getty rolled out its own image generator. The system drew exclusively from the company's archive and ran on NVIDIA's Edigy AI model; every output carried a royalty-free license.

Getty struck a prior deal with Perplexity AI in 2025. During October 2025 the firm struck an agreement letting Perplexity's search and discovery engines tap its catalog. That contract reportedly required the startup to improve image presentation by adding credits and links back to the original source "to better educate users on how to use licensed imagery legally." Perplexity has faced multiple lawsuits targeting alleged illegal use of copyrighted materials.

Getty has released no information on whether the new OpenAI arrangement permits training on its pictures, though its earlier pact with Perplexity bars such activity.

The partnership marks a shift for Getty's AI stance. The multi-year OpenAI deal follows Getty's earlier legal and policy actions against generative AI tools. No financial terms of the agreement were disclosed.